Abstract
It is pivotal how to advance health promotion activities into the health care system, in order to make the social insurance scheme sustainable in the coming aged society. In this article the author focuses the French health promotion program, Regional Public Health Plan (Plan Régional de la Santé Publique; PRSP). The PRSP project has been implemented under the principle of decentralization and new public health movement. Although there have been few evidences on effectiveness of PRSP, it seems that the French PRSP programs has been succeeding on the whole as a decentralization policy and new public health movement. One of the key success factors is its feature of decentralization. The French decentralization can be categorized into "deconcentaration". The central government always keeps its power of control over the territory thorough their local branches; DRASS and DDASS. The hypothesis of "steering at a distance" fits very well to the French decentralization process. The PRSP is implemented under the concept of new public health movement. The local health authorities are responsible for assessing the health needs of their population, deciding priorities for meeting those needs, placing contracts accordingly, evaluating the performance of those contracts and taking other action to promote health and prevent diseases. The French experiences will be suggestive for other developed countries with similar socio-political climates.
